Boating Knowledge Base
Have a sailing question? Access NauticEd’s sailing and boating knowledge base, and gain in-depth answers to your sailing questions. If you’re interested in powerboating, visit our new powerboating blog.
Understanding the Safety Position in Sailing
Learn how the Safety Position — a controlled, depowered close reach — helps sailors pause safely without losing steerage. Ideal for MOB drills, instruction, and more.
Narrow Channels and Traffic Separation Schemes
Rules 9 and 10 deal with narrow channels and traffic separation schemes, and mainly refer to larger commercial traffic...
Safe Speed Nav Rule
The Rule Every vessel shall at all times proceed at a safe speed so that she can...
Motor Sailing
If the wind is light and your time is short you might want to consider motor-sailing—using your auxiliary engine...
Air Conditioning on a Sailboat
Air conditioning is an enormous energy drain.
Sailboat Fire Extinguishers and Requirements
Fire Extinguishers Fire Extinguishers are given a letter rating that matches the type of fire they will be battling.
Winged Sail Vector Diagrams
Sail and Winged Sail Wind Force Vector Diagrams. And it's highly relevant right now because of the America's Cup AC45 catamarans using winged sails.
Diesel Fuel
The search, discovery, refinement and resource control of fuel has a rich and very sordid history. But just like...
Sailboat Solar Power
Solar panels produce DC power and are used to charge the batteries. A relatively small solar panel such as 1 square foot (0.1 m2) can produce about 1½ amps at...
Sailboat Electrical Panels
The sailboat electrical panel, located at the navigation station, normally has two distinct and separately marked sections; one section is devoted to 110-volt or 220-volt AC power and...
True Wind vs. Apparent Wind
Learn the basic difference between True Wind and Apparent Wind...
Luffing and Backwinding Sails
Luffing is when the sail is flapping in the wind. Back winding happens usually right before luffing occurs.
The Types of Sailing Charters
There are two types of sailing charters; captained and bareboat. The captained charters have a professional captain on board to navigate and operate the vessel, and usually...
Aids To Navigation (ATONS)
Aids to Navigation include buoys, lights, lighthouses, and markers, among others...
Sails
Sails are sophisticated objects. It is not only the materials they are made from that are important, but also, the way they are cut and sewn.
Fairlead Control
The fairlead is the first control device that the jib sheet passes through on its way back to the cockpit. You can move the fair lead forward or backward.
Alternating Current and Direct Current
In your house, your wall outlets deliver alternating current (AC) electricity. The electricity provided to your house and your marina from the national electric grid is AC. Most of the devices...
Action by a Stand-On Vessel Nav Rule
Strangely enough, the written text for the action of a Stand-On vessel is longer than that of a Give-Way vessel.
Clothing for Sailing
Dressing appropriately for weather conditions is an important but often overlooked topic. Weather in the marina may be considerably different from weather beyond the marina and conditions can drastically change during your venture.
Key Sailboat Instruments
Sailboat Instrumentation can be very sophisticated and intelligent. Most electronic displays provide a wide range of menus of useful information...
Propeller Entanglement
If there is a sudden slowing or stopping of the engine while motoring it is possible that you have picked up some floating line, hopefully not from your vessel.
Sailboat Design
Surely, the first sailboat was invented by a five-year-old child with a block of wood. He or she stuck a twig through a piece of animal skin and then down into a knothole in the wood.
Understanding Weather Systems
Weather is a highly complex natural phenomenon. Globally, it is all connected and operates on a multitude of physical laws.
Getting the General Feel of Maneuvering a Catamaran
Some have compared maneuvering a catamaran with driving a bulldozer. Well . . . perhaps!
